I have upgraded from the Note 5 and I am very happy with the performance of the Note 7. Granted I haven't done any benchmark tests or side by side comparison to other brand of Android phones. Don't feel the need to. The Note 7 is a beautiful phone that does everything I need. Battery performance is better than the Note 5 I had.

Last weeks Vergecast was similar. I was kind of shocked to hear Dieter say that the Note 7 has far surpassed the design of the iPhone...which someone (maybe him, can't recall) referred to as a surfboard.

And I will tell you that vs. my previous phone that it's by no means as fast either... Mileage will vary per user. Some of us power users can see the speed different already after a short time and with plenty of space left. Those of you that just text and get 50/100 emails a day and don't do a lot on your phone other than watching youtube videos won't see too much difference. It's just a reality.

Is the measurement of how fast an app opens or how many apps you can have open at one time the benchmark that people use in determining if a device is worth it? If a device having the same features as the Note 7 had better performance then I could see the reason for some less than stellar reviews. Here's my review: Feature wise, the Note 7 can beat up ANY device on the market.

Is the measurement of how fast an app opens or how many apps you can have open at one time the benchmark that people use in determining if a device is worth it? If a device having the same features as the Note 7 had better performance then I could see the reason for some less than stellar reviews. Here's my review: Feature wise, the Note 7 can beat up ANY device on the market.

It depends.. Reviews at XDA are geared towards a different user group, looking for different things. For the majority of users, no, these aren't issues when you are talking mms and not seconds.

Now there are some things in the XDA review that Samsung needs to address.

Are the issues something that affects daily use of the general public. Nah.

Confirmation bias of users can play into some things, also the placebo effect can be real. The XDA article wasn't aimed at most users at all, but some users took it as speaking to them and every day use of something they already felt.. That is where the confirmation bias comes in.

I've been a member of XDA since It was only about Windows Mobile development - before Android was a thing. I modded the first Android device on the market [T-Mobile G1] with the guidance of those mad nerds. In all these years, all the phones I've owned and modded, there has yet to be one that didn't have flaws when it was launched. Not One. Some had a LOT more flaws than others [T-Mobile Gx2] but they all had flaws. [IMO - XDA has gone off track. A lot of developers only concern themselves with fast speedy roms with no features. ASOP and Vanilla Android. It use to be about how can be fix this crap LG made. Now it's how much of these features can I take out and still have an OS that boots... from the press of the power button to home screen in .002356 nanoseconds flat.]

Here's the thing. Everybody who has the device today, got it on pre-order or as a review unit. We are the test drones. We get to figure out the bugs there weren't found before release. That's the job of the pre-order crowd. We get to be first to experience all the greatness and not so greatness. From us, revisions will be made and updates will be issued. So find those bugs people. We got to pay Samsung to help fix their product... Seems fair.